PICNIC BY LIMAY Options

[Psyche]

PICNIC BY LIMAY

My father swerves our old Ford
off the pebbled highway.
We kids sway in back of the truck,
excited knuckles clasped at handrail.
Clouds of dust spiral up,
solid and possessive as the brown steppes.

Noonday squints, unforgiving,
through earthy glare.

Identical thorn-bushes
lend prickly shade to the roadside;
a martinette whistles in solitary flight
over low vegetation. The landscape is flat,
not revealing anything of moment.
Neither does the sky. Birds don’t sing.

An empty world breathes soil and light
as we bounce over unlikely tracks.
Limpid river, snaking out of nowhere,
hums nostalgic airs from its source in Nahuel Huapi.
Limay pipes softly of The Enchanted Valley*,
of white waters hailing majestic rocks
shaped like breasts and phalluses.
Eons ago, they were sculptured by Mapuche gods.

Fertility chants to Mother Rock and Father Sky,
fluttering over Limay’s sacred waters.

Pehuén offers shade for the Ford.
We jump out and run to water’s edge,
already in swimsuits. My mother’s
is somebody’s castoff navy-blue Jansen.
She’s milky white, timid;
plump legs dimple beautifully.
Mine is elasticized flowery cotton,
two sizes big. It flaps wetly on my chest.

Water is crazily cold under desert sun.
...splash splash splash...

Later, it’s tinned paste sandwiches,
boiled eggs and apples, crouching
under wild broom-flowers. Sunburn.
My father bundles us into hot Ford
for drive home on rutted highway.
Sweat and grime form runnels on our skin.

Next summer we’ll go back, says my father,
drinking black beer in our scented garden.

By Psyche

Limay = river in Patagonia. Means limpid, white, in Mapuche language.
Nahuel Huapi = Jaguar Island, in Mapuche. Now is name of a lake.
The Enchanted Valley = Where Limay river cuts thru' high rocks with fantastic shapes.
Mapuche = Earth People.
Pehuén = Araucaria, similar to Monkey Puzzle Tree.

From Patagonia Lost, Copyright Sylvia Maclagan, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2005.